News & Events

NRF 2019

Target CEO stands down

Gregg Steinhafel, CEO at Target with 35 years at the company under his belt, resigned today, effective immediately. The board stated: "Today we are announcing that, after extensive discussions, the board and Gregg Steinhafel have decided that now is the right time for new leadership at Target".

Steinhafel is the latest executive to leave the retailer following the data breach over Christmas 2013 with Beth Jacobs, CIO, being the first to leave in March 2014. 70 million customers had their payment card and personal data stolen in the breach and some reports point the finger at security processes at Target being partly responsible for the 'BlackPOS' malware, 'kaptoxa', not being picked up on the system.

The full repercussions of the skimming scam are still to be seen but EMV (Chip & PIN) adoption is now being accelerated and card issuers are changing the rules on how responsible a store is for data theft. From October 2015, instead of card issuers covering two thirds of any card related fraud, merchants will be liable for the full amount where an EMV-compliant card has been used in a payment terminal which is not EMV-compliant.